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A Walk With(out) Svetlana
I write this homage to Svetlana Boym from afar. The news of Svetlana’s passing found me, as many of her friends, too abruptly and too far to pay our homage...
Letter in Support of Eugenia Berkovich and Svetlana Petriichuk
On 4 May 2023, Russian theater director Eugenia (Zhenya) Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriichuk were detained in Moscow as suspects in a criminal case on “justifying terrorism” for their feminist...
The Propaganda of Pornography: Soviet Reforms on Obscenity, Morality, and Personal Freedom in the Era of Glasnost
Lawmakers' greatest challenge was in defining pornography, a prerequisite for drafting meaningful legislation against it. Even pornography abolitionists acknowledged the importance of erotic themes in art and literature and did...
"Everyone Reads the Text That's in Their Own Head": An Interview with Linor Goralik
I’ve really lucked out in that I really consider myself to be a private individual, I don’t feel the need to look for a relationship to the Russian literary canon,...
Open Letter on the Termination of Russian Studies Faculty at Ohio University
Like you, we are wholeheartedly invested in the survival and recovery of higher education in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic. That recovery depends on the will of universities...
Re-Imagining Women at War: Kantemir Balagov’s "Beanpole" (2019)
Inspired by Svetlana Alexievich’s "The Unwomanly Face of War" (1985), an oral history of women who served in the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War, Kantemir Balagov’s arresting 2019...
Are Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn Kindred Souls?
The similarities readers have already uncovered between Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn's respective world-views pave the way toward further scholarship that would analyze the nineteenth-century author's continuing legacy in the work of...
Why no mass protests in Russia? Sociologist Greg Yudin Demonstrated Against the Invasion and Ended up in the Hospital. He Says We’re Living in a New Era.
The whole world is already realizing that February 24 marked the end of an entire huge postwar period, and now we’re living in a new era.
Nancy Condee discusses the politics of seizure in Russian culture today
On September 25, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Professor Nancy Condee for its 2015 Distinguished Lecture. Condee, who teaches Slavic and film studies...
Twenty-Seven Questions for Stephen F. Cohen from Russia’s Leading Opposition Newspaper
People who know me personally or my writings know that I never judge or lecture Russia, but these three inter-related features are objective, not my subjective opinion: the excessive concentration...
Cold Snap (Part I): Russian Film after Leviathan
This essay provides context for roughly thirty-five current and upcoming Russian films, loosely clustered around four topics: directors; debuts; economic health; and dominant industry trends.
The Day of Family, Love and Fidelity: "Traditional Values" and Church-State Relations in Russia
“You have gay parades, and we have the Day of Family, Love and Fidelity."
Party Like a Russian
Are we really here again?
Russians React (to Trump's election)
“Just looking at their outward appearances, both are extremely unattractive.”
What the Soviet Story Teaches Us about Sincerity
The Soviet story is an instructive reminder of the risky dynamics that can unfold between claims to sincere expression, political pressure, and media manipulation.
Reinventing the Soviet Past: Actor Pavel Derevyanko's "Positive Heroes"
In the series "Dark Side of the Moon" (2011-) and in the film "Salyut-7" (2017), historical and biographical truth take a backseat to the aesthetic and ideological needs of the...
Teaching Chekhov in the Time of Trump
Chekhov’s stories model a certain way of being in the world. One might describe them as incorrigibly humanist, humanist in the most uncool sense. You can choose to interpret Chekhov...
Philosophical Moving Pictures (Russia's Alien Nations)
Мikhalkov’s recreation of Russia is an exercise in sympathetic magic, meant to transform the derussified masses from de facto foreigners into the Russians they are meant to be.
The Fellowship of the Wrong (Russia's Alien Nations)
Perhaps the Eye of Sauron is a bit too “on the nose”?
"Let’s Look in the Mirror": Egor Zhukov's Courtroom Statement
Today, "All the Russias" is reposting a court statement by Egor Zhukov, a 21-year-old student at Moscow's Higher School of Economics and a libertarian YouTube personality, originally published on "Meduza."...